Soooo this has been bugging me for a few days and I have to get it off my chest LOL. I went to a "Discussion" at Glorius At that was supposed to be about Free Men, honor, blah blah. It devolved into a discussion about slaves and their rps and me speaking to a girl who is devote a Lifestyler and does not believe slaves should be Anything more then perfect, obedient, yes girls. During the discussion I mentioned something about Gor in general, I can't remember the exact thing but it was out of the books. That's when one of the men stated..."I'm impressed a roleplayer is so knowledgeable about gor" At the time I dismissed the comment as a compliment, but later that night it began to eat away at me. Honestly, I feel like that should be the opposite...It should be surprising that a Lifestyler would know so much about gor. They are the ones living a basically impossible dream and are completly clueless about the dynamics of a slave/Master realtionship in the books.

In my honest opinion, Gor is simply Impossible to actually live as a lifestyle for one Main Reason. ITS A FICTIONAL BOOK IN A FANTASY WORLD!This isn't 50 Shades of Gray that is based in the real world. This is a Fantasy world! You can kneel in nadu in your home, obey your husbands/Masters every command, get your ass whipped, but You'er not going to see a Thalarion wandering the streets, and he can't stick a set of silks on you, put you on a leash and parade you around town unless he wants to be arrested. You can't really "live" a gorean life, and if you think you can...then really...who has less knowledge about gor? Gah. okay, I'm done LOL.

I find Gorean lifestylers kind of pathetic to label themselves by a set of poorly written sci-fi novels. They sound to me like teenagers whose model would be Captain America, Thor or Spiderman from the Marvel comics. It speaks volumes about who you are, when you need a model such as a Gorean character...

Plus, I see nothing much to admire in the Gorean culture. Norman put unrealistic expectations on men and women and definitely unrealistic behaviors when he depicts women of Earth. He kept as well the whole sexist stereotype between the mother/wife and the whore, that we know so well in our own cultures. You have the respectable FW on one side, who must protect her dignity and earn respect in hiding herself behing a ton of layers (like a burqa) and appear frigid. And on the other side, the slave girl, who sexually blossomed, but is not respected, constantly demeaned and abused, is supposed to cum with any man, even the most disgusting one and has everyday, a libido at its best. The poor girl will scratch at the ground of her kennel if she is not touched for 48 hours (In Gor, women don't know what is masturbation...) How plausible...... In Norman's mind, it seems that a woman cannot have a wonderful sexuality, be totally free and make her partner happy without wanting to destroy him if he doesn't pull out a whip...Not to mention the many idiocies about women who are always weak, who can't stand the pain, can't face danger like a man and whose place is basically in the kitchen because domestic chores are of course, a woman thing... I have read the 34 books, I suspect that Norman still lives in the 60'...

Lifestylers will talk about honor as if they discovered this principle in reading about Gor, as if honor didn't exist on Earth. You might wonder what honor there is at abusing a woman, though, on Gor... They will point out that Gor is a world that is not polluted, with no mass destruction weapons etc etc bla bla bla... They just forget that it happens to be this way because Goreans live under the -wardship- of big golden bugs who will tap on their fingers (sort of) if they dare not to follow their rules... Sure, when you risk to be transformed into a ash heap, you tend to behave...

The so called real kajirae are rather little hypocrites. They want you to play by -their- rules. Dare refuse it, dare not to respect them, play their little game too well (in giving them orders as Goreans do with slaves for example), and suddenly, they know well how to insult you. They want to call you master or mistress, they want to be called kajira, addressed like slaves, but they don't want what goes with: The lack of respect, the abuses, the absence of rights. Personally, I can't respect people who have no respect for themselves when they address everyone, even the last moron, with title such as master/mistress. In BDSM, you reserve this title for your dom(me), it's a title which has been deserved by the dom and earned as well by the sub.

You cannot be a Gorean slave in real, anyway. It's an illusion. Because at the end, it's just a kind of D/S relationship where the sub can leave her dom when she wants, own assets, be a mother if she wishes, work and study as she wants. Some of the punishments that Norman describes in his books would be excessively dangerous to apply in real and if not causing any physical damages, could still leave serious mental after effects... (I'm often surprised to see how Norman treat these aspects, with no realism at all...).

I never met a lifestyler who really knew the Gorean culture well (all the opposite, they have rather a black and white interpretation) and was able to play a character with depth. They often mess with the RP etiquette, the slave players play cookie cutters, FW and FW confuse their role with dommes and doms (in a Gorean adaptation), noble and flawess ladies and gentlemen. They ignore the dark and violent aspects of Gor (save when they whip a slave). And don't forget that they are those who imported from the IRC chats into SL, most of the onlineisms we know...

I noticed too that most lifestylers have outdated avis. And when they read the books, they only memorise what suit their beliefs, so the worst of Gor, not the points when Norman, sometimes (too rarely) shows us a more human aspect of Goreans and their relationships, where a slave can be imperfect and unhappy, when she wishes an easy slavery where she won't have to work hard, when a man can be weak, vulnerable even have not honor, sometimes doubt of himself, where a FW is curious about slavery, even fascinated and secretly envies slave girls, will lie and cheat to improve her place in society. Lifestylers ignore these aspects (to be fair, many role players who didn't do searches on their role, as well...).

Gor makes a really interesting role-play environment when we can take up the challenge to write our stories in the respect of the described culture and general Gorean mentality and in adding to our characters the depth that lacks in the books and which is so frustrating. But as a lifestyle, a culture applied in real life? Absurd....

I've spent a good deal of my time in SL RP communities outside of Gor now and something interesting I've learned is that well, unsurprisingly, it has a really bad reputation. That certainly isn't news to anyone I imagine, but one thing I've also learned is that some people outside SL Gor believe that it's not really a RP genre.

I've met quite a few guys who seem to believe it's more of a BDSM community where lifestyling is expected. Kinda like when you go to a BDSM sim and they have rules that say "all women must be addressed as cunts in IMs". It's the reputation it has made for itself and I don't think it'll ever get fixed, because there are plenty of gorean sims where that kind of behavior is encouraged and allowed. A lot of gorean sims treat their sims like BDSM sims, so the cycle continues and you'll keep on having people who treat it as some kind of IC/OOC mix environment.

Add in the open tolerance of intersim RP and allowing anyone to RP without needing applications approved and you'll have the joy of these lifestylers and 'OOC masters' visiting your RP sim too!